Northwest Florida Community Hospital (Snu)

One of the reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it earned an A+ inspection grade. This is just about as good as it gets in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively insignificant. This nursing home was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to resident safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

This nursing home also received an A+ for its nursing grade. Nursing grades are primarily tied to a nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we assessed was long-term care. This nursing home received a favorable long-term care score, with a B+ in the area. When facilities receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to the fourth area, this facility was awarded an extremely favorable short-term care rating. While this wasn't nearly as good as some of its other scores, this is still one of the more favorable grades we offer. In crafting these short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our purpose is to formulate a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we considered in this category is the percentage of residents who who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.